Tiger Woods will return for the 153rd Open Championship at Royal Portrush despite equalling his worst number of shots for two rounds at a major.
The American, who is still struggling with fitness issues after almost losing his right leg in a car crash in 2021, added a 77 to his first-round 79 at Troon and the 36-hole sum of 156 equalled what he shot in the 2015 US Open.
At 14-over he was close to being dead-last but insists he still enjoyed the experience and failure to produce any kind of performance had not influenced his decision to keep coming back.
“It wasn’t very good. I made a stumble at two when I needed to go the other way and I was just fighting it pretty much all day,” he said after his third successive missed cut at the Open.
“I never hit it close enough to make birdies and made a lot of bogeys.
“I loved it. I always loved playing major championships, I just wish I was more physically sharp coming into the majors.
“It tests you mentally, physically and emotionally and I wasn’t as sharp as I needed to be. I was hoping I’d find it somehow but I never did. Consequently my scores were pretty high.
“I’ve missed playing Troon, it’s been a long time as I remember playing way back in 1997. I’ve had some good memories here, I just wish I’d done a little bit better.”
Asked about 12 months’ time in Portrush, where he missed the cut in 2019, Woods added: “Next year’s Open. Oh yeah.”
This year the 15-time major winner made a record 24th consecutive cut in the Masters in April but shot 82 and 77 over the weekend at Augusta National and made early exits from the US PGA Championship and US Open.
Due to his ongoing rehabilitation, Woods has only played the majors this year and he does not plan to feature again until the Hero World Challenge, which he hosts as it benefits his own foundation, and the PNC Championship in which he plays alongside his 15-year-old son Charlie.
He will look to step up his schedule next year but for this season he has only those two less competitive events in December.
“No, I’m not going to play until then. I’m going to just keep getting physically better and keep working on it,” he said.
“Hopefully just come back for our, what is it, our ‘fifth major’, the father/son, so looking forward to it.
“I’d have liked to have played more but I wanted to make sure I played the major championships this year.
“I got a lot of time off to get better, to be better physically, which has been the case all year. I’ve gotten better, even though my results really haven’t shown it, but physically I’ve gotten better, which is great.
“I just need to keep progressing like that and then eventually start playing more competitively and start getting into kind of the competitive flow again.”
Related: Shane Lowry ready for Troon challenges as he chases second Open title
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